Despite setback, Romney faces clearer path in his Senate bid
Mitt Romney seemed to be on a smooth path to Utah’s U.S. Senate seat, with the backing of President Donald Trump, the blessing of retiring Sen. Orrin Hatch and a popularity unique to the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Until Saturday. Delegates at the GOP’s state convention denied Romney their nomination as Mike Kennedy, a three-term state representative who entered the race just weeks earlier, edged out the establishment favorite with 50.88 percent of the vote to 49.12 percent.
The close result secured ballot slots for Romney and Kennedy in the June 26 primary that Romney backers insist is a speed bump in his political revival.
Still, the delegates’ rebuff was a setback and underscored that Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts who made Utah his primary residence just five years ago, has not yet made the sale with Republican voters. Kennedy had depicted himself as a bona fide Utahan, and portrayed Romney as an interloper, an attack that landed with some Republican delegates.
“We need a candidate who’s actually lived, worked and raised a family in the state of Utah,” Kennedy said last month as he entered the race. At the convention, he embraced a David and Goliath comparison, pitching himself to delegates as “your stone, ready to be flung at the foes of liberty who seek to oppress us.”
The bigger hurdle for Romney is his problems with Trump and his shifting opinions. In 2016, Romney was a prominent “Never Trumper,” calling the candidate a “phony, a fraud.” In 2018, Romney has spoken favorably of Trump’s actions on trade and suggested he is tougher on immigration than the president.
At the convention, Romney sought to cast himself as a Utahan battling Washington.
“Some people I’ve spoken to today have said this is a ‘David versus Goliath’ race, but they’re wrong,” Romney told delegates on Saturday. “I’m not Goliath. Washington, D.C., is Goliath. I’m your neighbor.”
Utah Republicans, who had long expected Romney to run for Senate, said he was still in a strong position to win.
As the first Mormon to win any major party’s nomination, Romney won 72.6 percent of Utah’s vote in 2012, the best performance there by any Republican since Ronald Reagan’s 1984 landslide. Even before Romney made his Senate bid official, polls showed him leading any potential Democratic nominee by nearly 50 percentage points.
“There’s not a real clear path for Kennedy to win this primary,” said Boyd Matheson, former chief of staff to Sen. Mike Lee, RUtah, and the opinion editor of Utah’s Deseret News.